08-15-2015, 12:45 AM
(08-13-2015, 09:05 AM)DHLawrence Wrote: A lot of those closures can be chalked up to conditions beyond the area itself. PetSmart acquired SuperPet and ended up with a surplus of stores in the area; with a former SuperPet on Hespeler Road and a PetSmart on Fairway Road, one of them had to give. Staples is down to change in market trends; people are buying their tech online more and more nowadays. Same with Future Shop (which is now a Value Village, and not an empty building like the lead photo suggests). If they hadn't closed it two years ago, they would have closed this spring. Marble Slab was probably a case of over-expansion; I think they've pulled out of a lot of places that opened at once. There was talk of Home Depot closing or becoming a warehouse for the other stores a while back, but they put a lot of money into the place so it looks like they're here to stay.
The Sportsworld people made a mistake in removing the mini-golf when the rest of the park closed. If they'd left that they'd have a guaranteed moneymaker.
What the area really needs is a grocery store. Right now there isn't one between the Stanley Park Zehrs and the Zehrs on Holiday Inn Drive (or the No Frills at King and Bishop), and Costco doesn't count.
Regarding the stores that have vacated their (often purpose-built) spaces and sometimes relocated elsewhere, it has each been a case of an "A" level tenant being replaced with either a "B" or "C" level tenant. Take Value Village occupying the former Future Shop, Mothers Pizza taking the former Kelseys, or Smitty's taking PetsMart and doing very minor renovations (little more than a new paint job with a different colour). If this area was still a prime regional retail area, you would have seen the big and new retail lands this Region has got repurposing these buildings, such as Farm Boy, Teppermans Furniture, Marshals or Mastermind Toys. Instead, these stores chose other more prime locations to open.
Also, when you look at the relocations (i.e. PetsMart, FutureShop (then), Staples), they would have analyzed all of the stores in the market/trade area, and closed the least profitable or relocated to an area with greater market share. If these former locations in Gateway were doing so well, don't you think the corporate head offices would have chosen to keep them open and close the locations on Fairway Road, Hespeler Road or Sunrise? I highly doubt it.
I'm with you though on the developer who bought the Sportsworld property - they should have kept the mini-golf. Definitely would have been a better bet on this area.
I really think the City of Kitchener should study this area further, possibly with a new secondary plan to make it more mixed use. A transit station (GO, aBRT, future LRT) could be a significant component. If nothing is eventually done, I think we will continue to see stores leave/relocate and landlords continue to struggle to fill vacancies or find tenants.